For there I picked up on the heather And there I put inside my breast A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! Well, I forget the rest. ONE WAY OF LOVE ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves. Let them lie. Suppose they die? How many a month I strove to suit My whole life long I learn'd to love. We and Bice bear the loss forever. This no artist lives and loves that longs not Once, and only once, and for One only, rant! (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warFit and fair and simple and sufficient Using nature that 's an art to others, Not, this one time, art that's turn'd his nature. Ay, of all the artists living, loving, Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! He who smites the rock and spreads the water Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, his mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing, While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril, When they stood and mock'd smiting help us?" When they drank and sneer'd — " A stroke is easy!" When they wip'd their mouths and went their journey, Throwing him for thanks was pleasant. - "But drought Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. Never dares the man put off the prophet. Take and keep my fifty poems finish'd ; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also! Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things. Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice transfigur'd. Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Full she flar'd it, lamping Samminiato, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Nay for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy) All her magic ('t is the old sweet mythos) She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steers man Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mor tal When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better? Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, Hungry with huge teeth of splinter'd crystals? Proves she as the pav'd-work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climb'd the mountain? Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climb'd and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the pav'd-work of a sapphire. Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that pav'dwork, When they ate and drank and saw God also! Adverse, each from the other heavenhigh, hell-deep remov'd, Should rush into sight at once as he nam'd the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he lov'd! Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd press'd and importun'd to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they help'd, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, In sight? Not half! for it seem'd it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceiv'd, obeying an impulse as I ; And the emulous heaven yearn'd down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky : Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found, but fix'd its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attain'd to heaven, there was no more near nor far. Nay more ; for there wanted not who walk'd in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnish'd for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lur'd now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last ; Or else the wonderful Dead who have pass'd through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new : What never had been, was now; what was as it shall be anon; And what is, shall I say, match'd both? for I was made perfect too. Then up again swim into sight, having | All through my keys that gave their sounds bas'd me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampir'd walls of gold as transparent as glass, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reach'd, and the pride of my soul was in sight. to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that prais'd as its wish flow'd visibly forth, All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth. Had I written the same, made verse still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud, in the artistlist enroll'd: But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws: that made them, and, lo, they are! Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. All we have will'd or hop'd or dream'd of good, shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. |